May 31, 2009

He brought the autumn wind in with him, standing at my door.Keeping past the threshold,not yet on my kitchen floor.He wore a leather jacket,his heart spattered on the sleeves.He opened his mouththen closed it,terrified to speak.

I did, instead.

“I can only give you Friendship,I haven’t any Love.I used up all my Affection,and I’m fresh out of Depression.Come back next week when it’s on sale;you look like you can’t wait.Try the girl down the street;she’s been full of Hateand Sorrow.”

He offered me a bounty,foreign cheese and wine,said he hadn’t come for Sorrow,just to buy some Time.He’d already been down the block,but their Time was out of stock.Perhaps come back Thursday?I was his only hope.

I blew out a breath filled with Spite;I was still restocking Time,and Love was on back-order.I searched through all the catalogs,checked sales sheets and made some calls,but Anger is in this fall.

Nobody wanted flasks of Tears,and it’s now gauche to display Fear;Kindness is too last year.Time went out in ‘82, next time it’d be in, no one knew.So I shook my head at the windblown man,brushed him away with a flick of my hand,sent him out into the cold.Where he went next, he never told.

May 29, 2009

Today I published my second micro collection of poetry, Shelter, to Kindle.

Shelter's theme = HOME. Places we live, places in which we sleep, and the people who have gone before us there. My parents built the house I grew up in, and it's the only previously uninhabited place I've ever slept. I've lived in countless dorms, apartments and one sorority house. I lived in an apartment above a dead man for a week in 2001. (That's an essay I continue to work on in the hopes I can find a print publisher, for it's a profound story.) I lived in a 90-year-old house in Kansas City that had six previous owners in that time. Now I live in a 32-year-old house that stood empty for eight months while under foreclosure, a house teenagers broke into to party, a house in which we initially found a dead bird and parts of a bat. If only these walls could talk.

"Baptism of a Staircase" was written when I was in graduate school, and it's about the night Beloved and I sealed the beautiful Mission staircase in This Old House.

"Autumn Light" is dedicated to the changing of light from golden to white in autumn. It was a sincere departure from my normal style at the behest of my poetry professor. (I suspect she didn't like my usual style, but I could be wrong.)

"November Reflections" was written before the little angel was born but shortly after we bought This Old House, in the first year I was married.

"The Places You've Been" was first written in college in one form, then rewritten around ten times to arrive at its final form.

Please check it out if you have Kindle or a Kindle app. It's $1, but Kindle will mark it down to around $.80 at least initially.

Not five minutes after I finished my happiness post yesterday, irony struck. My primary care doctor's office called to say he wouldn't refill my antidepressant because I hadn't been seen in the office since 2007. I reminded them of the spider bite and the cold in 2008, but apparently they'd forgotten about those.

They told me they wanted me to come in for a full physical and blood work, but oh, they don't take my insurance anymore. And so they could give me 14 days to find someone knew to manage my medication.

And then I said something like, "You know, it's not wise to tell someone on anxiety medication they have two weeks to find a new doctor during allergy season or they'll have to quit their meds cold turkey." BECAUSE IT MAKES PEOPLE ANXIOUS.

Ahem.

Then she said, "But the prescription ran out in January. Didn't you go off it then?" But no! I didn't! Because every month since January the pharmacy has called your office and you've refilled it! But of course you have no record of that!

I hung up and reflected for ten minutes on the stupidity of modern medicine.

I figured the doctor thing would work out, though, because I now live in the land of hospitals on every corner. First, I tried to sign on to my insurance company's web site. I got an error message saying something about a system failure.

Then I called the number on the back of the card. After a five-minute phone tree, a guy gave me three doctors' numbers.

Doctor 1 -- No new patients

Doctor 2 -- This was a hospice number. They only treat the terminally ill.

Doctor 3 -- Only treating allergy patients right now

I called back, went through the phone tree again. This time I got five numbers, just to be safe.

Doctor 4 -- Disconnected number

Doctor 5 -- Disconnected number

Doctor 6 -- Accepting new patients and held open two appointments a week for new patients -- would I like to come in on Monday? Yes, yes I would!